


Fic: Gone

by sasha_b



Category: King Arthur (2004)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-08
Updated: 2013-06-08
Packaged: 2017-12-14 09:06:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/835155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/pseuds/sasha_b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fic: Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Eh, this is kind of Lancelot-y rambling, but I was just doing it to exercise my writing muscle. I am enjoying my love of this 'verse so much. My original writing is being helped by it too, so thanks for humoring me.

 

  
"And the women?"

Arthur's answering smile had caused a great laugh to bubble up from Lancelot's gut, the sound belying the truth of his feeling - his stomach twisted, his intestines writhing like a live snake, caught and wanting to break free. He'd smiled, but Arthur hadn't met his eyes; Lancelot's black gaze flat and dull and broken.

One more mission, then. One more turn, once more into the fray. He stood at the head of his mount, the horse nickering softly against Lancelot's face. He was barefoot; the hay and earth under his feet familiar as he turned from the horse and sat on one of the benches that ringed the interior arena they sometimes practiced in during inclement weather. The dead of night in the garrison was quiet and still and despite that, Lancelot couldn't manage to _think_ or to clear his mind of the whirling turmoil that caused a headache and an ache that seemed to have no source. His hands clenched and unclenched as he leaned forward onto his knees, his elbows digging sharply into the meat of his thighs.

On what was supposed to be his last day here, he was sitting, awake and sober, alone in the stables, contemplating his horse and the gear he'd gotten so used to packing he wasn't sure what to do with it on the morrow.

But wait - he knew what to do with it, as Arthur had pledged them to some idiotic last crusade and that _fucking man_ -

Lancelot spat a curse and hurled a piece of bridle to the side, the metal of the bit striking the wall and reverberating around the wooden walls, a booming bell sound that ate at his ears and forced tears from his eyes. He slumped back against the slat behind him, covering his face with his fingers, his nose running, his free hand clutching at the pendant he wore underneath his threadbare sleep tunic. Things were about to change, life blowing with the wind east or west or whatever direction he wanted it to go, until Arthur and his righteousness and his orders and his fucking piety blew the wind out with his breath.

And now Lancelot, who'd wanted nothing but this moment since the second he'd clapped eyes on the men that had come to his village to take him, wasn't sure _what_ he was supposed to do. And that was -

"You need your sleep. We leave at dawn."

"And yet you are here," Lancelot said through the fingers that still covered his face.

Arthur sat heavily next to him, neither man saying anything or looking at one another. The horses shifted and made sound and Lancelot at last stood, his light clothing hanging loosely on his thin frame. His muscles bunched and flexed under his stiff stance, a lifetime of shedding blood and being forced to learn what he was afraid of shaping his body into a lean extension of the blades he carried. He took a few steps from Arthur, then turned and opened his eyes.

"Can you please go."

Arthur cocked his head; his dark hair wet and glistening from the baths he'd obviously come from. His dark tunic echoed the shadows under his eyes; he narrowed them as his brows drew in slowly. "Go?"

"Can you just go back to your quarters, please."

Lancelot stood still, his hands at his sides, the only thing palatable about what he was feeling was the slamming of his heart in his chest - that was acceptable. It meant strength and he was tired, so tired of being weak. Tired of being afraid of what would happen when he left this place and this man and the life he'd known for fifteen years that seemed never-ending - and yet.

"Lancelot," Arthur started, but shut his mouth with an audible clack as Lancelot raised his hand in the air, supplicating, begging. The cool air from the open stable door was beginning to bring goose pimples to his skin. Lancelot raised both hands, palms up, eyes closing again briefly. The sound of the bit he'd thrown hitting the wall echoed in waves in his head, the thrum of his blood pumping through his veins matching it, _bumpthumpbumpthump_ and he laughed, his hands lowering a bit with the force of his hilarity.

"You never ask me anymore," he said, "you never even bother to ask my opinion or to see what I think. This time, Arthur, this time you didn't even _look_ at me." He lowered his hands, the slapping of his palms against his legs annoying and loud. "I am not interested in sleeping, commander. This was supposed to be our last night here - I was ready, I think, to be blown where the wind would take me. I had even considered, the gods help me," he snorted a rough bark of a laugh, "visiting you as you had asked. But now, now another mission, another time to die. So I'll ask again, even though you don't ask _me_ anymore."

He took the few steps that separated them. "Can you please. Go."

Arthur rose and gently made his way around Lancelot, face impassive, the lines Lancelot knew better than any map silent and Arthur's eyes did not lift from their forward gaze. He stopped, his back touching Lancelot's, as it had so many times during battle - Lancelot could feel his heart stuttering and slowing to match Arthur's, and he whispered a curse, his musical voice guttering and low.

Lancelot waited, vibrating with anger, with want, with hurt so wide he knew there was no stitch that could close it. The heat that radiated from Arthur was the heat he was all too familiar with, aching heat, fire that banked against his frozen ice.

A ghost of breath against his ear; the curl that looped there moving gently as Arthur stepped fully away from him and out of the stables.

He swallowed, his throat a lump of scratching horrible pain that made him choke and stumble as he sat unevenly on the ground, his knees drawn up, his face stretched into a mask of confusion and rage and -

The girl was what Arthur needed.

Lancelot knew this the moment he set eyes on her, and when they brought her, the boy, and all the people that would not make it with them, Lancelot knew without a doubt he would dance in the wind when it blew him to Arthur's side one last time.

He knew when Arthur spoke to all the knights on the cracking ice save him that he was a pawn in the hands of whatever emotion he'd neglected to excise from his brain the first time he'd let Arthur in, had let the other man kiss him, touch him, worm his way into Lancelot's long dead heart.

This time though, Arthur looked at him, and Lancelot's minute shrug -

_Can you please just go._

Lancelot closed his eyes and lead his mount away from the ice and the line they made, seven shivering knights and one tiny girl.

_This is not your fight! It is not Rome's fight!_

He raised his eyes to the sky, and watched as the burning fields obscured everything save the fire of Arthur's final speech and Lancelot flung his arms out then, the wind blowing him to Arthur's side as he had expected.

_Just go._

It would be easier, he thought, the bolt protruding from his chest, for him to just go, as Arthur had not asked him this time either and Lancelot was oh, so tired of everything. But when the other man's knees hit the ground next to him, Lancelot found himself free to realize one thing -

he'd already gone a long time ago.

His smile was gentle and honest and the grass was cool and beautiful under his face.

~


End file.
